Escape to the Movies: The Dark Knight Rises

Chknboy

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Sep 10, 2008
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I'm glad Bob didn't give this such a great review, because that means that anyone who sees the review should be pleasantly surprised at how good this movie is. After watching it last night at the premiere I have to say that it was a satisfying end to a series, and thoroughly enjoyed it, go watch it NOW.
 

Coreless

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Aug 19, 2011
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Inkidu said:
So Bob lauds everything but one thing so that means it'll be good.

If he totally loves it, it's probably not that great (if not worse). Read Sucker Punch.
If he totally hates it there's a good chance that it's better than it is. Read Amazing Spider-Man.

Got you figured, Bob-O, got you figured. :D
You nailed it, I have felt the same way about Movie Bobs reviews since his review of Fast Five. He has an undeniable bias towards certain kinds of things he feels needs to be in a movie and tends to praise the ones I end up finding nowhere near the quality he laid upon it.
 

newwiseman

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Aug 27, 2010
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Saw it at midnight, I entirely agree with Bob.

Without giving anything away I will tell everyone to imagine the Scarecrow's part as if that had been the completely absent Joker; because it's really clear that originally that was going to be the Joker's appearance...
 

Phase_9

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Oct 18, 2008
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I thought the same thing halfway through the movie. I leaned over to my friend and said "Hey, if this is a Batman movie, where the hell is Batman?" Then it bugged me for the rest of the movie until he showed up again.

But, as to missing the Superman trailer, you didn't miss much. It was a couple of scene shoddily thrown together with a voiceover from Russell Crowe as Jor-El with credits for the major players interspersed within it. Only at the end does one see a glance of Superman, and he isn't really doing anything except flying really fast.
 

APSunder

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May 25, 2010
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Sorry Bob, but this was the best superhero movie ever. By far. Better than Avengers and TDK, and the emotion was incredible, immense, and deep.
 

Trishbot

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May 10, 2011
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It was an okay movie. A lot of it worked. A lot of it wasn't that good either. It's a weird film.

I can best sum it up like this:
Is it a good comic book film? No. It's barely like the comics.
Is it a good Batman film? No. Batman's barely even in it.
Is it a good film period? Absolutely.

But that's the thing. It's weird, because it's a really great film... that has Batman in it. But it is not, to me, a Batman film. If anything, this is Jason Gordon-Levitt's movie; his character is the one that solves the puzzles, does the detective work, helps the people, organizes the resistance, develops the emotional bonds, and, well, is put in the position of doing what Bruce Wayne can't/won't by the end of the film.

I just have mixed feelings. Some things were just amazing, while others were lame. It was a rollercoaster of extremes.

And I will NEVER get used to Bane's Darth Vader-meets-Sean Connery voice. I couldn't help myself. I chortled whenever he spoke.
 

MB202

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Sep 14, 2008
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All I can think about when it comes to The Dark Knight Rises now is the shooting in Colorado. the guy who did it said "I am the Joker". No, he isn't. He's like those guys at the beginning of The Dark Knight claiming to be Batman, except far worse, because he's got 12 dead people and 59 (so far) injured people hanging over him. But, I'll give him this at least, he is a psychopath, kind of like the Joker.
 

Britisheagle

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May 21, 2009
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Saw it this afternoon and can't help but agree. Brilliant film, much better film overall than the Avengers and yet I preffered the Avengers as it was more entertaining as a whole than this film. It was a good story but I saw the twists coming a mile off, being a fan of Batman and comics in general, and some of it seemed long winded and confusing. Tom Hardy's representation of Bane was awesome though.

That being said, it was one hell of an ending for the series and leaves enough gaps in the story for it to be picked back up if Christopher Nolan ever choses to, or if a JLA movie ever comes to pass.
 

NicolasMarinus

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Sep 21, 2009
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And here I was thinking they wouldn't put up the review because of what happened in Denver. Or that at least someone would mention it in the comments.

Nope, we're all snuggly safe here in Escapist-land, far from the broils of real life. The name is well-chosen indeed.
 

SilverHammerMan

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Jul 26, 2009
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I watched it last time at the premiere and I found it dragged. I wasn't really sure if it was a legitimate problem that I had with the movie though or if I was just burnt out because I saw it as the culmination of a Nolan Batman movie marathon that had seen me in the theater for a full 5 hours or so already, so this is a nice confirmation.
My problem with the movie is that I just wasn't a great Batman story to me, and there are just some story elements that grate on me in any medium, and those elements kept coming up again and again. For example Catwoman, Anne Hathaway was great, and she played the role really well, but I find that almost by necessity, when she shows in a story Batman becomes a massive sucker since she has to have someone to mess with as a femme fatale. I still like it, but it feels she puts one over on Batman a lot. And her motivation, which I won't spoil, felt generally boring and cliche to me.
I agree with Bob on the structure making no sense, and that was actually one of the worries I had going in, since it seemed like it would, and indeed it turned out to be, really weird to have Batman come back twice in one story.
I actually liked Tom Hardy as Bane, he wasn't the best part of the movie, and honestly the whole "people's revolution" thing that the movie had going felt really uninspired and boring to me.
The late game twist was good, but the problem I had with it was it meant that it was just another thing that Batman had missed. In this movie Batman isn't just fallible, he's a bit of a putz, not only is there surprisingly little Batman in this movie, but when he does appear he keeps getting his ass handed to him.
And while I liked Joseph-Gordon Levitt's character, I felt like I didn't like him nearly as much as Christopher Nolan did. The character seriously hijacks huge parts of the movie, and while that's not necessarily bad, I was there to see Batman, not some generic cop. And the early revelation he makes to Bruce felt forced.
Furthermore, I found the ending to be incredibly[/]b cheesy. Just shockingly cheesy, especially coming from Christopher Nolan. It was really two incredible cheesy ending one after the other, and while the comic fan in me kind of loved the second one, it was still goofy as hell and first one felt very out of place and just strange.
I don't want to seem like a party pooper, and I genuinely liked big parts of the movie, but it's just that there were things that I disliked and they're more prominent in my mind right now, maybe in a few days I'll have processed the movie more fully and start of see some underlying themes and so on, but right now I have to agree with Bob that it was good, but not great.
 

Carbo

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Dec 17, 2010
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Bob calls the movie good although not as good as the two others, but despite ranking The Dark Knight as one of his all time favorite super hero movies, he's automatically biased.

I could understand people's complaints with him were he spewing venom much like in his Spider-Man review because emotional responses, but do you really think Bob went into the movie wanting to dislike it? Hell, I've been lukewarm about the movie just because I never thought a sequel was all that necessary, and while I haven't seen the movie yet, I know of a few people who had a good deal of similar impressions who have seen it.

While he cites it as not being better than The Avengers, he has stated prior that he wasn't sure if The Avengers was just as good as The Dark Knight. They are apples and oranges, and hell, Bob said the same himself on his blog. He said himself in the past that The Amazing Spider-Man shouldn't be faring against TDKR either. But if there's one thing they're similar in, it's setting benchmarks. Both of those movies were "new". For many, it's hard to be excited when it's hard to improve on a new benchmark, and both the former two movies did that where-as Rises seemingly plays with the tools it knew how to handle to different effects and results. A lot of people seem to find it better, but some don't.

Sure, you may disagree with his criticisms, but they're by and large still criticisms that aren't only prevalent in this particular review, and if you're so quick as to shit on his view of a movie by calling this particular review of him biased, that makes you kind of a hypocrite. The movie is probably going to rake in a fortune in the box office and is generally well received, so why worry about a few 8.5s? It's far more interesting to discuss a movie's flaws than it is talking about everything that was 10/10 awesome all the way through would watch again.
 

Tiamattt

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Jul 15, 2011
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Saw it , although it felt unnecessary long in some parts overall I thought they did a good job. Like Bob said the action and acting was great and while the story took it's sweet time getting to it's peak like a roller coaster moving very slowly to it's highest point once it got there it became awesome. I will say that less Batman more Bruce has one major benefit to it, less sore-throat voices for us to endure. Seriously that thing was making the audience crack up in places where nothing remotely funny was going on.

As for the inevitable vs Avengers topic they felt like almost totally different movies genres to me, like the Avengers had a much more funny and friendly feel to it while Dark Knight Rises was definitely more dark, gritty and more thinking to it.

While I enjoyed the Avengers more, saying that would be like going to a book store and picking out 2 books in different sections and then asking which one's better. All that said definitely worth the watch.

Or you can wait for the eventual DVD, which isn't a bad idea because I would've killed for some subtitles at certain times.
 

Mr Somewhere

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Mar 9, 2011
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I don't often disagree with Bob, well, not terribly often at any rate, but I do disagree with Bob here.
I thought it was a great film, it did not quite reach the height of the previous entry, yes, but it wasn't off by any significant degree. It tied together thematic elements, plot elements, from the previous two films in a neat little bundle. It added something of its own touch too.
Call me a cynic, but I had no great love for The Avengers, it was the usual superhero fluff that put me off superhero comics. It was good for what it was, but I felt that The Dark Knight Rises was a far superior film.
I think this trilogy will resonate with people for some time to come, it ended on high, as far as I'm concerned.
I just hope this discussion doesn't turn to the usual vehement bile. Whether you agree with Bob or not his opinion is as valid as any.
 

Oskamunda

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Dec 26, 2008
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Well, Bob, your showing may not have had the Superman trailer, but at least it didn't have real fucking bullets [http://abcnews.go.com/US/aurora-colo-batman-shooting-71-victims-largest-mass/story?id=16817842#.UAm06u5Yt8E].
 

Slycne

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Feb 19, 2006
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NicolasMarinus said:
And here I was thinking they wouldn't put up the review because of what happened in Denver. Or that at least someone would mention it in the comments.

Nope, we're all snuggly safe here in Escapist-land, far from the broils of real life. The name is well-chosen indeed.
The review went up before the shooting.